And so, the end of yet another year whizzes toward us at breakneck pace, but what have we learned? Debt is bad would be one lesson to take to heart. Another would be that if you're not a fan of disappointment, now would be a good time to stop counting down the days to your retirement. With all that behind the household of myself and countless others, it's easy to see why a bit of trouble may have been had getting into the Christmas spirit this year. Festive cheer is a phenomenon that's a lot of things to many different people. While some will settle for no less than carols and chestnut roasting by an open fire - in the compulsory, itchy sweatshirt depicting an endearingly deformed reindeer of course - others settle simply for a few days of feeling slightly less shit about themselves. The fashion to which I pitch my seasonal groove with jingle bells on is in a slightly more grounded manner; To relish in a pervasive, inner-fuzziness that throws my conscious mind, for a few precious moments, across a chasm decades wide. Whereupon it lands and greedily basks in a joy so simple, that it's a trial to explain it; something deep-rooted and primal that just makes every fibre of my being stand on end, screaming and overwhelmed by how fucking awesome Christmas is. This year, that feeling was to be the bane of my Christmas with it's resounding absence.
So what prompted my inner ho ho ho to get up and go go go? Maybe it's because Christmas never used to be a three-month-long celebration. Let's hold that statement to further scrutiny shall we? Three. Months. Long. As soon as the Halloween merchandise has even begun to fill the shelves it slowly creeps in; "Book now for Christmas" signs adorn the front of every eatery up and down the land. Selection boxes and toiletry gift sets accost you at every weekly shopping trip you make. The old lady across the road, who no-one ever visits because she reeks of piss, puts her candle bridge in the window, presumably with the tragic intent of attracting carol singers to talk to. Of course, the inevitable happens and by the time the much chronicled 12 days of Christmas roll, around your senses have been assaulted with no less than 5,000 megajoules of snowflake shaped lighting and enough coca cola ads to span the length of several feature films. (I shudder to contemplate the plight of those without a Sky+ box) Enough to see anyone well on their way to becoming a Dickensian caricature.
Perhaps my lack of goodwill to men stemmed from something as simple as my age. When the big three-O tentatively looms over your head like an angry balloon waiting to descend, it's little wonder a rotund man in red and white makes you think of heart disease faster than jolly gift-giving fun. My resolve remained strong though, after all, with my daughter now at the age of four this could easily be called her first "Real Christmas" and I felt it to be my duty to ensure she looks back on her Santa years with all the dewy eyed nostalgia I muster up every time I think of unwrapping that fresh copy of Super Mario Bros 3. It's silly to think that my enthusiasm levels could ever enhance or diminish the joy she yields from the sheer anticipation of presents galore, yet it still doesn't feel good to spend Christmas Eve thinking of it's daily successor as little more, than another drizzly Thursday.
Leave it to Google then to come through for me yet again, as it does whenever I reach a loss for masturbatory inspiration, with the Santa tracker. For those of you who missed it, I can only extend my commiserations and hope that you will now make use of your browsers bookmarking feature, better placing you for when the end of 2009 rolls around. Tracking Santa's planetary pit stops with Google maps, while a simple enough concept, was executed with such flare that it had my entire family of three crowded around our fifteen inch monitor. Imagine the scene as we revel in watching what was, in essence, a pixellated icon moving in synch with a fucking countdown timer! Do you think we cared? Not a jot. With baited breath we sat waiting for each video of his most recent departure to give us a lesson on the Christmas celebrations indigenous to that locale. I couldn't even bring myself to hate them for forcing me to learn as each successive factoid hit my cerebellum, locking itself away to be remembered forever. Did you know the Russians celebrate Christmas two weeks later than us? Me neither! There was something so delightfully cathartic in, at long last, feeling that Yuletide enthusiasm slot into place as I saw my daughter's smile brighten up every time Santa made another move closer to us. Before I knew it my Grinch like apprehensions had vacated my person only to leave me positively pissing brandy and shitting candy canes. It seemed my Christmas spirit had not been lost forever, only misplaced.
It could be viewed as unfortunate to think of me only getting into the swing of Santa's birthday for it to end so soon after, but sometimes a day is all you need. I seem to remember the term "Christmas blues" getting thrown around a lot back in the nineties. The term was used to describe bouts of depression certain individuals would experience after the holiday season had came to a close. It's hard to imagine such a thing existing in this consumer driven age where we're only every nine months away from it all starting all over again! I can understand how people may come to miss the opportunity to catch up with distant relatives. It's not too hard to imagine that they would mourn the passing of the party season and the chance to get a night out at the expense of their employer. To miss the annual occurrence of Christmas itself though, is something I just can't wrap my head around. To the select few who find themselves suffering from the Christmas blues though, may I suggest the following video as the one-stop elixir for your condition:
How can one children's toy so competently embody everything that is and ever will be wrong with the Christmas of the now. It's one thing to piddle on the memory of the baby Jesus, all but replacing him with the capitalism compliant Santa Claus. It's quite another to defecate in that replacements sack and sodomise his reindeer. It seems that's not only what the makers of the rapping Santa were going for but excelled in. With honours.
Suddenly next December doesn't seem too far off at all...
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